


and the sky opened up and swallowed me whole (only to spit me back out)

by voidofthestars



Category: Homestuck, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (for tma anyway), Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, Drowning, Fear, Gen, Horror, Let me know if i should add more tags, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), falling, the vast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:55:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidofthestars/pseuds/voidofthestars
Summary: Statement of Dirk Strider, concerning a dream he had. Statement was found pre-recorded on tape by, presumably, the subject; found on December 3rd -static noises-. The tape was damaged as if thrown or dropped from a great height.
Relationships: Referenced dirk/john
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	and the sky opened up and swallowed me whole (only to spit me back out)

**Author's Note:**

> shout out to ralsi in the bro strider discord for helping me get my shit together enough to finish this 
> 
> turingTested on Tumblr a while back made a post about dirk v the vast and I went !! oh?? I can do something w that!! so finally months later here it is.

-click-

Statement of Dirk Strider, concerning a dream he had. Statement was found pre-recorded on tape by, presumably, the subject; found on December 3rd -static noises-. The tape was damaged as if thrown or dropped from a great height. Thankfully, it still seems to work. Will be recording this tape on to another, to preserve it. Recording by A -static noises- S -static spikes- The Head Archivist, -long train of static that increases dramatically before cutting off abruptly.

Statement Begins:

-a second click, this one fuzzier sounding-

It all started with this strange, well, to call it a dream would be a terrible disservice.

I'll be fully honest, I don't exactly have normal dreams to begin with, what with my splinter bullshit and stupid shit about breaking the narrative or what-the-fuck-ever, but I won't go into any of that. This is more about, what I can safely say, was the worst dream I've ever had, and mostly just because of how badly it affected me. I mean fuck, I'm sitting here making this recording, aren't I?

And, not to brag, but I've had the horrifying mind bleed from all the other things any of my splinters have done, that coagulated into my fucking skull leaving me as trapped as car wreck victim watching those splinters do all the things I knew I was capable of and just never wanted to think about, so I am well aware that I've had fucked up dreams, but I digress.

I was back in flooded Huston, up at the top of that old apartment, just sitting on the roof. I couldn't tell you how old I was, maybe sixteen, but also at the same time, I felt like I was twenty-one at the same time. I remember staring up into the cloudless sky, watching and, just waiting for either the drones to attack or seagulls to come to visit me. Really anything to stop the boredom. 

Honestly, that should have been my first clue that this wasn't normal. The fact that I was honestly  _ bored _ . When I was actually there, there was never any time to be bored, between training and pestering my friends and even talking with Hal, there was always something to do. Even if it was as simple as double-checking our plans to enter the Medium when the time to do so got closer.

I think, whatever the hell it was that put me there, knew I was getting antsy, and getting close to making myself wake up, when.... well, what happened happened. The whole reason I'm even doing this, talking into this old piece of machinery.

It started with the sky darkening, heavy, oppressive grey clouds, seeping in from the edges of my vision and flooding into the middle, crashing amongst each other like the waves onto the shore or against the scaffolding. The smell of the ocean air changed, almost like someone was spraying air freshener near me, smothering all other smells and leaving the empty smell of nothingness, and not Void like the way Roxy smells when they use their powers. More like, a lack of scent, cold and crystalline.

And the next thing I know, I'd fallen off the edge. Except there was no way I could have fallen. I know I wasn't sitting at the very edge, I haven't risked that since I was 10 and actually fell and nearly died from crashing into the scaffolding and then subsequently the ocean.

But then, I kept falling and falling. I've fallen off that edge before in real life, not just as a kid, but also when I was older when I'd practice with my hoverboard, or even just to fall on a drone to kill it. I know how far it is from the top of the tower to the water's surface, I spent hours as a preteen calculating how far it would be and how fast I would need to fall to die instantaneously.

But this wasn't right. It was so much longer of a fall. It was an endless fall into the empty tumultuous grey and dark blue sky.

I was too far away from the scaffolding of the tower to grab on and no matter what I did I couldn't call my hoverboard to me. It was terrifying and I couldn't catch my breath as I went but I couldn't panic or even move. I could do nothing but watch and fall.

And the worst part of it all was the complete and utter silence. the rushing of air even drained away, leaving nothing but a dull ringing in my ears, and my own thoughts rattling around in my own head. Despite the stormy skies, there was no thunder, or lightening or even the stench of rain and ozone. It was horrifically disorienting.

I'm not the Time guy, so I couldn't tell you how long I fell, but eventually, I started hearing this voice speaking to me. It was so fucking loud and terrible, I swear I could almost see the words etched in white spiraling around me as I dropped.

It wouldn't shut up, that hissing voice, rambling on and on about, well, me. 

"Look how small you are. You try so hard to be big and important, trying to live up to your brother's image, and to your own projected image, the one you present to all your friends. But you, Dirk Strider, you know deep in your heart that what you truly are is just tiny and insignificant to the grand scheme of things.

"I've seen your beginnings and your endings. Tell me, Dirk Strider, what did you do, other than cause your friends misery and undue stress? Would any of them even miss you? What happens at the end of your pathetic story? Do you know what's going to happen to you, Dirk Strider, Prince of Heart, He Who Destroys Himself? Because I do."

The whole time that voice spoke, I was still falling, and the grey of the sky got darker, nearly black, and the ocean moved farther away, and yet I was still falling. I realized that this whole time I wasn't exactly freefalling, not in the way people see in movies, all twisting and flopping and spinning around under the extreme pressure of wind and gravity. No, instead it was like…..this is hard for me to explain, apologies. 

It was like I was sitting on the edge, and something puppeteered me up into standing and had me take a single step off, letting me plunge feet first with weights on my feet. My hands felt bound to my sides, I couldn't get enough air, and all I could see was endless dark storm clouds, the type of grey that saps all the color from the air.

"You will be forgotten. Completely and utterly forgotten. You will barely earn a footnote in the endless book of history. All of the effort you've put into your friends and into the building of this world will eventually mean nothing. When they say your name, if they bother to at all, it will be met with 'who?' All this effort, and for what? To be forgotten."

I wish I could truly describe the voice that told me all this. But in truth, it wasn't one single voice. It sounded like someone had taken all my friend's voices and blended them up, ran it through a digitizer and then played it over again both on some shitty PA loudspeaker system and into a set of old falling apart headphones. 

The voice slid between my ears and down my spine. I could feel them consolidating at the base of my ribcage, sinking razor-sharp fangs into my guts, nausea roiling in my stomach back up and out my mouth, going through the motions of vomiting up nothing but air escapes, leaving me coughing and gagging, and all without moving the rest of my body. 

I'll admit, I've spent years hearing my own voice and text repeat those things back at me, either things I've thought to myself when I'm at my lowest, or from Hal, who as a copy of my own brain knows me better than anything, and therefore has the sharpest daggers to throw back at me anytime I let my ego get ahead of me. Needless to say; I've heard it all before.

But even having said that, it's a particularly cruel knife to the heart to hear my closest friends and family repeating things that they, in actuality ,  had spent years trying to convince me otherwise, and the voice knew that.

It threw one last barb at me before letting go of me, slamming me headfirst into the waters, where I sank deeper and deeper, with no chance to claw my way back to the top. 

"They would have been better off with any other version of you, even Dave's original brother." And with that it let me go, and I was freefalling straight into the endless stormy grey waters.

I swear I could feel the ocean pressing in on me, keeping me down. I could feel every ounce of saltwater filling my lungs before I woke up choking on nothing in my bed at the home I share with my brothers.

-a heavy sigh, the rapping of fingers on a metal desk, the clattering of shades being knocked loose-

It's been two months since that dream. I can still taste seawater, even on dry land. Sleeping…..is more difficult than before. My boyfriend is worried about me, but I can't stop thinking about that fall. I close my eyes and instead of blackness, I see that storm cloud grey and hear the angry churning of the sea below me.

My brother has a thing about me being on roofs, triggers, and all that, and usually, I'm better about crushing the urge to be up high, but all I've been able to think about is being above everything, with heavy ocean air whipping around me. 

He's caught me on the roof of our house four times now, just sitting on the highest point, staring off into the distance. 

He has to think I'm a fucking mess, and that he should give up on me. I've never been great at keeping up with my friends in a healthy way, but I've been avoiding them more. Every time they talk all I can hear is that fucking voice saying all those nasty things to me.

I can feel myself coming undone, feeling like I'm, well, splintering. Fuck, I don't even know why I'm doing this, and on such an old piece of tech too. 

Even on Dave and John's Earth, this type of thing was antiquated, let alone on mine, and even here on Earth C. Honestly, I have no fucking clue where it came from. 

Rose gave it to me, said she and Kanaya were looking through the remains of their meteor and found it deep in some of the halls. Said it might be something for me to take apart and see if I couldn't duplicate it. 

Got it running, and was just gonna leave it on the shelf, but then, well. All that shit happened. Roxy and Jane said that I should try writing down my dream, or at least documenting it somehow, and I dunno, this felt right.

-a pause, filled with shuffling of papers and fingers tapping on metal, a groan and a sigh as if someone put their head in their hands. a faint whooshing sound of wind is heard under the man's voice, nearly inaudible- 

John and I are going to the beach soon. I'm going to ask him if we can fly out to the middle of the ocean, see if he'll throw up a small hurricane around me. It's the strangest thing, I think I miss that feeling. Of being bound and suspended and endlessly falling. Unable to struggle, unable to do anything at all. 

I can't imagine this ending well. If Hal was here he'd tell me how much of an idiot I was being for even entertaining these thoughts, but hey that's nothing new. I'm going to try to sleep now. Maybe this time it'll be different, though I have my doubts. 

-a whir as the tape ends. the first speaker comes back on-

Statement ends.

-sigh- Another victim of the Vast. Some people are just perfect for their chosen fear. Lonely always feels so much worse though, the idea of being alone even with others. I'd almost prefer feeling small in comparison to being alone, though I shouldn't say that too loud, who knows what's listening. 

It sounds like this Dirk, whoever he was, at least was making an effort to avoid his fate, though that trip to the beach may have been a catalyst to a much worse end then just dreams, I fear. Shame. He sounded like a nice young man. But in the end, sometimes our own worst enemy is ourselves and the damage we alone can do.

-a strange whooshing noise-

Ah, well fuck. There went the original. The Vast took it back I guess. Glad I got to record it when I did. Wonder where it'll end up next? Best of luck I guess. Back to it then.

-the definite click of the record turning off-

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i think i like this actually, i really wanted to grasp the way tma does statements?? I'm kinda behind in actually listening, somewhere like right before all hell literally breaks loose, but I know whats going on lmao


End file.
